Chapter 1 Exploring the Visual Studio Integrated Development Environment 17
Moving and Resizing the Programming Tools
With numerous programming tools to contend with on the screen, the Visual Studio IDE
can become a pretty busy place. To give you complete control over the shape and size of
the elements in the development environment, Visual Studio lets you move, resize, dock,
and auto hide most of the interface elements that you use to build programs.To move one of the tool windows in Visual Studio, simply click the title bar and drag the
object to a new location. If you align one window along the edge of another window, it
attaches to that window, or docks itself. Dockable windows are advantageous because they
always remain visible. (They don’t become hidden behind other windows .) If you want to
see more of a docked window, simply drag one of its borders to view more content.If you want to completely close a window, click the Close button in the upper-right corner
of the window. You can always open the window again later by clicking the appropriate
command on the View menu.If you want an option somewhere between docking and closing a window, you might try
auto hiding a tool window at the side of the Visual Studio IDE by clicking the tiny Auto Hide
pushpin button on the right side of the tool’s title bar. This action removes the window
from the docked position and places the title of the tool at the edge of the development
environment in an unobtrusive tab. When you auto hide a window, you’ll notice that the tool
window remains visible as long as you keep the mouse pointer in the area of the window.
When you move the mouse to another part of the IDE, the window slides out of view.To restore a window that you have auto hidden, click the tool tab at the edge of the
development environment or hold your mouse over the tab. (You can recognize a window
that is auto hidden because the pushpin in its title bar is pointing sideways .) By holding the
mouse pointer over the title, you can use the tools in what I call “peek-a-boo” mode—in other
words, to quickly display an auto hidden window, click its tab, check or set the information
you need, and then move the mouse to make the window disappear. If you ever need the
tool displayed permanently, click the Auto Hide pushpin button again so that the point of
the pushpin faces down, and the window then remains visible.Another useful feature of Visual Studio is the ability to display windows as tabbed documents
(windows with tab handles that partially hide behind other windows) and to dock windows by
using the docking guides that appear as tiny squares on the perimeter of the IDE, as well as
a centrally located “guide diamond,” as shown on the next page.